I Know
by Feilyn
Summary: A series of drabbles...The fact that Minerva McGonagall went to school with Tom Riddle is interesting, do you not think? Possibly she never spoke to him after all, she was a Gryffindor, he, a Slytherin. But maybe...just maybe...something else happened.
1. Chapter 1

_**I Know**_

_I know what he was. I know what he did._

_I hate him for it._

_I fell in love with a shadow. A mere wisp of a man, whirling around me, sucking me in…_

_But that's alright. Everyone makes mistakes._

_I remember meeting him in the Prefect's Bathroom, years ago. Nervous._

_He was a Slytherin. I, a Gryffindor. _

_We could never happen. Although my family was very tolerant in public, the truth of the matter is that my name would be quietly crossed off the family tree if ever I married a man whose surname wasn't listed in 'The Old Blood.'_

_I didn't care._

_But he did. Oh, Merlin, did he care. What scares me the most in this life is not thoughts of death or torture, not memories from the war, First or Second._

_It's the possibility that it was my fault._

_I know it's irrational. Albus told me time and time again that by the time I refused him, he was already on the path of no return._

_It doesn't matter. The human mind is not an object of rationality._

_I told him I would risk it. I said to him, 'I will leave them all behind for you.'_

_He wouldn't let me._

_I remember explaining my plan to him, words tumbling over each other, rushing like a river of blood…we would wait, I said. We would wait until we left Hogwarts, and I would ask for money from my parents, lie to them about my reason for wanting it…we'd go to Spain and run with the bulls, train dragons in Romania, sing with the sirens in Greece, be anywhere else and be _together.

_And he said no._

_He was an orphan, he told me. He said no matter how much we loved each other, he would never allow me to leave my family._

_I screamed at him for while. We were in the Room of Requirement, and the plates just kept on appearing until he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms, kissing me hard._

_My lioness, he whispered. My lovely lioness._

_And then the Room supplied a bed and I had a taste of true bliss._

_That, I think was my second mistake. Allowing myself to truly love him._

_The first was allowing him to truly love me._

.:I Know:.

_I am going to post another chapter to this, but I thought it would me more climatic to leave it there, don't you?_

_-ducks-_

_Hope you liked, and please review!_


	2. Chapter 2

_It was near the end of our sixth year that the madness truly began to appear. He had a journal, a little notebook that he carried everywhere. Always writing in it he was, and yet when I became suspicious enough to pick it up, it was blank._

_Always before in public he'd been polite, if cold. But as the school year drew to a close, the insults began growing steadily more venomous until I would look at his face and see nothing but pure loathing there. Each word was like claws ripping into me, tearing me apart but in the dark of the night where no one could see us he cried, apologising again and again, caressing my cheeks, running his hands through my hair, over my body._

_And I forgave him. _

_Every time._

_Then the journal disappeared and he became withdrawn, like a piece of him was missing. I know now that it was true, that he had sealed a part of his soul away in that journal, but at the time I had no idea._

_Albus – or Professor Dumbledore, as he was to me then – watched him constantly. It seemed innocent, the eccentric Professor watching over a favoured pupil, for favoured he was to Albus (or so it appeared). But after every confrontation a black rage would consume him, destroying his usual calm so he would lash out at whoever was nearest – usually me._

_He was tearing himself apart from the inside out and I was too afraid to see it._

_It was the first day of our seventh year and we had been elected Head Boy and Girl. I'd stumbled into our shared Common Room to find that he wasn't there. I went searching for him then, and somehow I found the Room of Requirement._

_He was – holding_ court_ there. The Slytherins were bowing before him as he hissed to the cobra curled around his forearm._

_He was speaking Parseltongue, tongue flickering in patterns no human should have been able to make. As shocked as I was, I admit now that it was deeply alluring, his sibilant, _mesmerising_ tone captivating his audience._

_Then he flicked his wand, wordlessly displaying his absolute control over his magic. Red glowing letters came to life in midair._

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

_Nonchalantly he flicked the wand again._

I am Lord Voldemort.


	3. Chapter 3

_I asked him what it meant. "Lord? Lord Voldemort? Tom, what's going on? What's happening? Tom?" The name – Voldemort, not Tom – rolled off the tongue, rich and tainted with evil. It was a name intended to instil fear._

"_That is not my name," he hissed, striding away from me._

_I ignored him, "Tom, this isn't funny! It's not a joke! What do you think they'll do to you if they find out, Tom? What do you think is going to happen? You were talking to a snake, a _cobra_. They'll call you all kinds of evil, Tom, people won't trust you!"_

"My name is not Tom!_" he screamed at me as he whipped around to face me and shoved me up against the corridor wall, arms above my head. Something wild, alien, darkened his beautiful chocolate eyes and my breath quickened from something other than fear._

"_Let me go Tom."_

"_Don't call me that."_

"_Put me down."_

"_Say it."_

"_Say what?"_

"Lord Voldemort!"

_I stared at him then, only it wasn't my Tom I was looking at. It was impossible to maintain eye contact with that madness for long, so I looked at the ground, ignoring the slight pain in my arms from the angle they were at._

"_Lord…Lord Voldemort." I whispered._

_He laughed, and it was like the name, like his eyes. Rich, dark, beautiful and tainted with evil. No, not evil, not yet. I'm afraid my memory is not what it was. It was mad, wildly, ecstatically so and I was swallowed whole by its power._

"_That's right, _Minerva_." His voice caressed my name like his hands were my body – with my arms secured above my head with his magic, I had no escape. I wasn't sure if I wanted one. "I am your lord, my beautiful dark goddess, and you belong to me. _Say it!_"_

_And I loved him still, deeply, passionately, mindlessly, so I did._


	4. Chapter 4

_I didn't speak to him for over a year. It wasn't from lack of trying, but Tom was very good at hiding. I saw him though, if only from afar and it _scared _me to see the way the warmth slowly leeched from his chocolate eyes. I heard him laugh, and while he was careful not to show that wildness, there was no pleasure in the sound. _

_I noticed Albus watching him even closer. Between the two of us, it's a wonder how Tom managed to find the time to recruit his future followers. His Death Eaters._

_But he did._

_It was the last night of seventh year. While everyone – or so I thought – was at the Graduation Feast, I slipped down to the kitchens, made myself a sandwich and ate it on my way up to the library. I had no interest in Professor Dippet's doddery speeches and my friends had all left the previous year so there was really no reason for me to torture myself trying to sneak covert glances at Tom._

_The library has always been my refuge. Even now as a teacher I like to wander in there and peruse the shelves, reading whatever catches my fancy. _

_But that night I was heading towards the place not to read but to sit. Or muse, rather, on my life and the turn it had taken and what would come in the future. My heart still bled over Tom's betrayal but I was smart enough and mature to believe that eventually I'd get over it. Eventually everything would be well within me._

_Oh, how wrong I was._

_Tom joined me. Or rather, I joined him – he was already in the library when I arrived. _

"_Come with me, Minerva." _


	5. Chapter 5

_I was frozen with shock. Not a word for months and months and then he just broke the silence? Just like that? My heart went from oozing blood to gushing it._

"_I'm leaving, Minerva!" He stood with a dangerous, fluid grace that hadn't been there last time we'd been so close. "Come with me!"_

"_Where…" I had to swallow several times, my throat was so dry. "Where are you going?"_

_He closed the gap between us and ran a finger from the corner of my eye down my cheek, along my jaw and across my throat. "Away, Minerva. We'll go away, run with the bulls in Spain, train dragons in Romania, sing with sirens in Greece, and then we'll come back here and _rule_. I'll be God, and you, my beautiful, darling Minerva will be my Goddess. My dark Goddess." His voice was as rich as ever, soft and lilting and if the words hadn't been utterly insane I would have thought I had my old Tom back._

"_Tom—"_

"_That's not my name," he whispered, tracing a circle over my heart._

"_Let me call you Tom," I breathed, resting my forehead on his chest. "Let me have this one thing, for tonight, and then I will never in my life call you by that name again."_

_His hand came up and stroked my hair. "Let it not be said that Lord Voldemort cannot be merciful," he murmured. "For tonight, my dark Goddess."_

_I looked up into his eyes, so warm, so loving, so completely _mad_, and I could have cried. My first love, my only love. _

_My Tom. _


End file.
